bigcottonmouth,
Your statement encompasses a lot of steels. Some are better than others and all differ from simple carbon steel. THe carbon steels will sharpen easier, are more elastic but in general don't hold an edge as well as some tool steels(semi-stainless) and other true stainless steels.
I appreciate your thoughts but in practice I doubt they would hold up in general. There are many cheap stainless steels, 420, 440a, and such. They don't hold an edge very well. Plus some folks may have tried to sharpen a good stainless or tool steel knife and been unable to achieve a useful edge. The last could be because of not having adequate sharpening tools.
I will say this, buy a Dozier, Moore, or any other quality name brand stainless/tool steel knife and I guarantee you will find the edge retention to be very good to excellent. I realize your experience with stainless has not been positive but please don't brand all stainless as poor.
Get a good knife and a good coarse diamond stone, DMT is my favorite, and a fine diamond stone. Practice carefully and you will be able to keep a good stainless blade sharp and useful.
Hope this helps you in some small way
Greg

wooray,
About that old Barlow, I still have one that is old,old, old. Believe it or not it was built at a time the steel wasn't too bad. But seriously, if you like a knife and it is expensive, you will loose it. My present EDC is a DOug Ritter MIni Rescue in S30V. WHen I can't find it for a moment I freak out. Thought I had lost it a couple of times but found it. Just sharpen on it till you wear the blade out and will have to replace it. Use it for freehand practice.
GregH

GregH:I have several knives that are both stainless and high carbon.The one I like is a Buck that has Buck,121 USA on it.I have had a lot of surgery and would rather the surgeon uses stainless But Military always uses high carbon.Iknow that is a different kind of surgery but from experience in the military,I want a good edge.I never had much time to operate. I once asked an armorer why stainless,especially along the ocean.He explained that the stainless in knives would rust anyway and if it didnt it was very soft.of course I didnt understand too well and just figured the Marines were too cheap to buy stainless. wooray

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